"Producing" Childhood:Play Activities In The Parenting Practices Of The Only-Child

With the only-child growing up in the changing Chinese society since the reform and opening up,their micro-individual life course is closely intertwined with macrosocial profound changes.After the end of the one-child policy,it appears that the number of only children and single-child families even will increase gradually.In the"post one-child era",to explore the imprint left by the special childhood of the policyoriented only children in their life course,it can provide important reference and useful enlightenment for deeply exploring the only-child issue under the new situation.Through in-depth interviews and participatory observation of the only-child in S city,this paper focuses on their childhood life and parenting practice.This study takes the play activities as a clue,highlights the different characteristics of children’s life in the two generations,and connects different social backgrounds and social concepts(especially the concept of parenting).Then,this paper explores the influence of changing social structural factors on the only-child’s parenting,and the role of childhood in the process of "producing" a new childhood.This paper found that in the 1980s and 1990s,due to the uniqueness,the only children in childhood began to "nest" within the adult world and were isolated in the family.But they still had the opportunity and space to be in the partner community to carry out rich forms of game activities.Nowadays,children are faced with increasingly prominent segregation,and their play activities are "regulated".In the organized formal space and activities,childhood life is disciplined and fixed.The two generations of childhood interacted with each other in the parenting practice of the only-child.They internalized modern science and middle-class parenting norms,and used them as a guide to arrange their children’s play activities.They carefully protect childhood from the erosion in commercialization,electronic era,and consumerism.Childhood always needs to struggle and adapt to the constraints of their specific times.In childhood,only children have to face high expectation,academic achievement for upward mobility,and underdeveloped economic conditions.On the other hand,nowadays their children have to cope with the increasingly fierce educational competition,the increasingly institutionalized life course,and the crisis brought by electronic era and commercialization.A special childhood will make only children have some fertility preferences.They have different understandings of the roles of parents and use family resources in different ways.They either collude with the competitive education environment,or betray unfair competition and unreasonable social evaluation criteria.Only children reshape the parent-child relationship with their parents in the cooperation of intergenerational parenting.And during the process of parenting,they also review and reflect on their childhood and educational experiences.This kind of review is an examination through the filter of the times.They actively abandon the parenting style which is judged by the current parenting concept simply and extensively.Moreover,they inherit or carry forward the parenting style that they believe are consistent with the middle-class parenting model.